HHS ANNOUNCES CREATION OF "CONSCIENCE & RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DIVISION" TO PROTECT RIGHTS OF MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

 

 New Conscience and Religious Freedom Division Announcement

 HHS ANNOUNCES CREATION OF 

"CONSCIENCE & RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DIVISION" TO PROTECT RIGHTS OF MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS 

BY HEATHER CLARK

SEE: http://christiannews.net/2018/01/19/hhs-announces-creation-of-conscience-and-religious-freedom-division-to-protect-rights-of-medical-professionals/; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 

announced on Thursday the creation of a new division in its Office for Civil Rights 

(OCR) focused on protecting the right of conscience and religious freedom.

“The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division has been established to restore federal enforcement of our nation’s laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom,” the department said in a statement.
“The creation of the new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights,” it added.
The protections most likely pertain to those who have objections to participating in abortions and those who have religious convictions about “gender reassignment” treatments and procedures. The division would enforce existing laws, such as the Church, Coats-Snowe and Weldon Amendments.

As previously reported, in August 2016, a number of states, as well as the Christian Medical and Dental Association, filed suit against HHS under the Obama administration after it released a rule that was perceived as requiring any doctor who accepts Medicare or Medicaid to provide “transgender” related services regardless of their religious objections. Services would include hormone replacement, mastectomies and hysterectomies.
A federal judge halted the enforcement of the rule, writing, “Plaintiffs will be forced to either violate their religious beliefs or maintain their current policies which seem to be in direct conflict with the rule and risk the severe consequences of enforcement.”
Roger Severino, the director of OCR, stated on Thursday that his office would investigate any complaint surrounding the violation of the conscience rights of medical professionals. He advised that there had been 34 complaints submitted since the election, and that the creation of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division was the result of last May’s executive order from President Trump.

“Federal law protects the freedom of Americans and their organizations to exercise religion and participate fully in civic life without undue interference by the federal government. The executive branch will honor and enforce those protections,” the order read in part.
Abortion advocacy groups and others decried the news, asserting that the move was a step backward for the nation and that it legalized discrimination.
“This announcement marks the Trump administration’s latest step toward turning the Department of Health and Human Services into a place where backwards ideology rules, and science, ethics, and concern for the well-being of all Americans are non-existent,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement.
“This administration has taken a very expansive view of religious liberty,” Louise Melling of the ACLU also told NPR. “It understands religious liberty to override anti-discrimination principles.”
However, during an event on Thursday announcing the new HHS division, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, opined that the protection of religious freedom was a step in the right direction, noting that under the Obama administration, people of faith were expected to conform to the government’s views.
“This department’s silent refusal to defend our rights sent a very clear message: Now is not the time for freedom. It is time for you to conform,'” he said, speaking of the HHS under Obama. “What a difference one year makes.”
Sen. James Lankford, R-OK, also noted that the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion is misunderstood as some wrongly believe it only pertains to worshiping in a church building.
“It’s the ability to have a faith and live your faith wherever you are,” he explained. “If you have a faith and you can only practice it in your certain place of worship, you don’t have real religious freedom.”
“Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced,” Severino also said in the press release. “No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice.”
“For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.”

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS REINSTATED MEXICO CITY POLICY, ALLOWING STATES TO DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS REINSTATED MEXICO CITY POLICY, ALLOWING STATES TO DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

SEE: http://the-trumpet-online.com/planned-parenthood-taps-sex-change-therapy-minors-new-revenue-source/

 

 Trump Becomes First President To Speak At A March For Life Rally in 45 Years
Alex Jones presents video footage of President Trump speaking in Washington D.C. at the 45th annual March For Life Rally, fulfilling yet another one of his many campaign promises.

 President Trump addresses March for Life Participants and Pro Life Leaders Jan 19, 2018
In the White House Rose Garden

CHINESE COMMUNISTS INFILTRATING U.S. UNIVERSITIES

 

CHINESE COMMUNISTS INFILTRATING 

U.S. UNIVERSITIES

BY ALEX NEWMAN

SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/28061-chinese-communists-infiltrating-u-s-universities;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

From FreedomProject Media:
Lawmakers and academics in the Lone Star State are on edge after the mass-murdering Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was exposed trying to buy influence and shape the narrative at the University of Texas and other American educational institutions. Indeed, operating through front groups, the regime in Beijing is now making its influence felt in education worldwide. Critics say it must be exposed and stopped.
The latest shoe to drop in the controversy over Communist Chinese infiltration of U.S. schools came last week. Under pressure from lawmakers and pro-liberty voices, the University of Texas at Austin announced that it would not be accepting funding from the CCP-linked “China-United States Exchange Foundation,” a registered foreign agent known for trying to spread the murderous regime's propaganda.
In a letter to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), UT-Austin President Greg Fenves vowed that the school would “ensure that the receipt of outside funding does not create potential conflicts of interest or place limits on academic freedom and the robust exchange of ideas.” Fenves expressed concerns that accepting funds from the CUSEF would, indeed, limit academic freedom and ideas.
In fact, even before lawmakers got involved, the CUSEF was already under fire by university faculty for its role in promoting Communist Chinese propaganda on campus at an event in November. And the outfit is funded by “a high-ranking Chinese government official with close ties to a sprawling Chinese Communist Party apparatus that handles influence operations abroad,” according to media reports. It is led by another ChiCom operative.
To read the rest of this article, click here.

DHS SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN SAYS HER AGENCY IS CONSIDERING CHARGES AGAINST SANCTUARY CITIES' LEADERS

 

 DHS threatens crackdown on sanctuary cities amid immigration debate
 Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) weighs in on reports that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asked federal prosecutors to see if they can file criminal charges against sanctuary cities for refusing to cooperate with federal deportation efforts.

 DHS SECRETARY NIELSEN SAYS HER AGENCY 

IS CONSIDERING CHARGES AGAINST 

SANCTUARY CITIES' LEADERS 

BY WARREN MASS

SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/28060-dhs-secretary-nielsen-says-her-agency-considering-charges-against-sanctuary-city-leaders; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 16, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen (shown) said that DHS has asked federal prosecutors to consider the possibility of bringing criminal charges against leaders of so-called sanctuary cities. Such cities refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities by honoring detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold detainees in their custody who are in this country illegally until ICE agents can apprehend them. “The Department of Justice is reviewing what avenues may be available,” Nielsen told the committee.
Nielsen’s statement reinforced what the acting ICE director, Tom Homan, said during a January 2 appearance on the Fox News Channel’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, namely, that politicians should be held “personally accountable” for crimes committed by illegal immigrants. “We’ve got to start charging some of these politicians with crimes,” Homan said.
Homan said previously in a statement to the Washington Times last July that he wanted to see local officials charged as complicit in human smuggling if they shielded illegal aliens through their sanctuary policies.

Though neither Nielsen nor Homan mentioned a specific plan for bringing criminal charges against officials in so-called sanctuary cities who refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373 (the federal law that says local government officials may not interfere with communications between their entity and ICE regarding the immigration status of detainees) they might consider charging such officials with “misprision of felony.” 18 U.S. Code § 4 defines “misprision of felony” as follows:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

In order for an official to be charged with “misprision of felony” for failure to turn over an illegal alien, the alien must be guilty of a felony. Not all illegal aliens are felons, but some are. In addition to being charged with non-immigration-related crimes that are felonies, an alien who has been legally removed from the United States commits a felony if he reenters the country illegally one or more times.
Since the number of aliens who have illegally reentered the United States again after being deported is considerable, pursuing “misprision of felony” charges against officials in sanctuary jurisdictions should certainly be considered an option.
President Trump issued an executive order (13768, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”) a year ago this month to deny some federal grants to so-called sanctuary cities, but U.S. District Judge William Orrick for the Northern District of California blocked the order provisionally last April. The parts of that order that Orrick objected to fell under Section 9: “Sanctuary Jurisdictions. It is the policy of the executive branch to ensure, to the fullest extent of the law, that a State, or a political subdivision of a State, shall comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373.”
8 U.S.C. 1373 states, in part:

Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.

The order went on to state the penalty for noncompliance:

In furtherance of this policy, the Attorney General and the Secretary, in their discretion and to the extent consistent with law, shall ensure that jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373 (sanctuary jurisdictions) are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary.

Orrick issued a permanent injunction on November 20 in response to lawsuits filed by the city and county of San Francisco and Santa Clara County, in California.
“The Counties have demonstrated that the Executive Order has caused and will cause them constitutional injuries by violating the separation of powers doctrine and depriving them of their Tenth and Fifth Amendment rights,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick for the Northern District of California wrote in his order.
As we observed in our article about Orrick’s original ruling in April, while it is true that the Constitution vests spending powers in Congress, Orrick’s reliance on the 10th Amendment to justify his ruling is novel, at best. The amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
We noted that the 10th Amendment has long been cherished by strict constitutionalists in matters involving states’ rights. However, Orrick’s statement that the amendment “requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely made” appears to be a product of his own imagination — not the 10th Amendment. Furthermore, the Trump executive order does not authorize any spending, but merely restricts how federal funds may be used.
It would make more sense to claim that the 10th Amendment does not authorize federal grants to local jurisdictions at all — rather than to assert that it prohibits the federal government from denying those grants.
As stated previously, Trump’s executive order, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” was issued to enforce compliance with a federal law:  8 U.S.C. 1373. The Trump administration has appealed Orrick’s decision blocking that order to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but there has been no ruling on that appeal as we write.

Related articles:
Illegal Alien Sues San Francisco for Violating Sanctuary City Law
 “Sanctuary Cities” Make a Mockery of Our Laws
Judge Blocks “Sanctuary Cities” Defunding Order; Trump May Take Case to Supreme Court
DHS Issues Report Listing Jurisdictions Failing to Cooperate With ICE Detainers
Will California Cut off Tax Receipts to Feds in Sanctuary Cities Dispute?
Number of Former Sanctuary Cities Reversing Policy
California Advances Bills to Become Sanctuary State
San Francisco Sues Trump to Stop Executive Order About Sanctuary Cities
 Illegal Alien Sues San Francisco for Violating Sanctuary City Law
“Sanctuary Cities” Make a Mockery of Our Laws
Texas: Gov. Abbott Bans Funds for Sanctuary Cities; Senate Bill to Demand Compliance with ICE

AMY ELLIS NUTT AT FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA: SCHOOL FORCES KIDS TO SIT THROUGH SEX CHANGE SEMINAR

 

 AMY ELLIS NUTT

 

GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA: SCHOOL FORCES KIDS TO SIT THROUGH SEX CHANGE SEMINAR 

 A government high school in Virginia forced children to sit through an assembly promoting gender confusion, genital mutilation in “sex-change” surgeries, and other absurdities. Parents, students, and even teachers were shocked. Now, the school is under fire, with the powerful non-profit Family Research Council (FRC) sounding the alarm. Parents were not informed in advance, according to a horrified teacher who asked to remain anonymous. The children were apparently not given an opportunity to opt out of the indoctrination session, either, the gender ideologist's comments suggested. The program, held at George Mason High School in the Northern Virginia city of Falls Church, featured well-known gender-confusion advocate Amy Ellis Nutt. Among other absurdities, Nutt told the children that those who “assign” their “gender at birth” — doctors who examine their anatomy — might have gotten it wrong. | Article: http://bit.ly/2mOELm3

  SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/28063-public-school-forces-kids-to-sit-through-sex-change-seminar

 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

From FreedomProject Media:
A government high school in Virginia forced children to sit through an assembly promoting gender confusion, genital mutilation in “sex-change” surgeries, and other absurdities. Parents, students, and even teachers were shocked.
Now, the school is under fire, with the powerful non-profit Family Research Council (FRC) sounding the alarm.
Parents were not informed in advance, according to a horrified teacher who asked to remain anonymous. The children were apparently not given an opportunity to opt out of the indoctrination session, either, the gender ideologist's comments suggested.
The program, held at George Mason High School in the Northern Virginia city of Falls Church, featured well-known gender-confusion advocate Amy Ellis Nutt. Among other absurdities, Nutt told the children that those who “assign” their “gender at birth” — doctors who examine their anatomy — might have gotten it wrong.
“Gender is a spectrum,” claimed Nutt, a propagandist for the far-left Washington Post, a discredited megaphone for Bilderberg attendee and CIA contractor Jeff Bezos that perpetuates the lie that a globalist Insider who wanted to deny voting rights to black people gets to define the "conservative" movement.
During her bizarre speech, Nutt lectured the students on her book Becoming Nicole. According to summaries of the book, it tells the story of a biological boy who claimed to be a girl, took puberty-suppressing hormones, and then was castrated at age 17 as part of a “gender reassignment” surgery. Nutt told the children she attended the castration.
To read the rest of the article, click here.